November 2025

Been trying to wrap my head around the new zoning and heights at dozens of activity centres around Melbourne, with 20 of them released a couple of months ago – so Im looking at Camberwell Junction, where the zoning was applied in March this year, and there’s a couple of new projects approved already.

So, there’s two new zones, replacing the current mixed use, commercial or residential zones (!), the Activity Centre Zone (ACZ) which has the tallest heights and higher expected densities in the centre, and the where the Minister reserves to the right to approve anything as long as they meet the Great Design Fast Track guidelines, which I hadn’t heard of, and started early this year – its full of all the right ideas, but who judges it ? Hmmm.

So the map for Camberwell Junction just has a large purple area of ‘up to 12 storeys’, but says to refer to a more detailed Activity Centre Structure Plan prepared by Boroondara the year before, which has differing heights and some nice setbacks, which I like to see.

The highest on both maps is 12 storeys, but the Minister has just approved a 14 storey thing on Burke Road, between existing tallish 70s office blocks, so its fine, but does it meet the rules ?

She also approved a part 8 storey thing opposite, uphill from St John’s church, an area that just says ‘case by case’, – its a dull grid but OK, but will I think stick up in views towards Our Lady up the hill, perhaps nobody thought that was important. Given that 16 storeys is proposed in smaller centres, I expect to see even taller happen around the junction, given the height limits are in fact not hard limits.

The ACZ zone is surrounded by a much larger area called the Housing Choice and Transport Zone (HCTZ) – silly double-speak name. It comes in two types, 1 which has lower heights, and 2, a couple more.

This is partly over areas that were the low scale Neighbourhood Zone, which had a limit of two storeys (up to 9m), but allowed flats. The new zone 2 is ‘up to 4 (or 6)’, and zone 1 is mostly ‘up to 3 (maybe 4)’, so an extra one or two floors. It doesn’t have any guidelines attached ! Rescode ? But another new thing is a Built Form Overlay, which allows Councils to specify a range of outcomes, and if they’re met, then no VCAT.

The HCTZ 2 sounds pretty much the same as the existing Residential Growth Zone, which allows 4 floors up to 13.5m, and is used along the main streets already, where all those 4 storey things have already gone up, but usually on larger sites. So that idea has been extended into some side streets.

The HCTZ doesn’t trump heritage overlays so the nice houses are generally safe, but new projects in other streets would be higher than the one or two storey houses, though not so terrible, depending on setbacks.

I don’t know if this would make smaller apartment projects more feasible, they just don’t seem to happen on single house lots, so I don’t expect a rush of change. And it doesn’t mean any of them will be any cheaper, certainly not in Camberwell. And all feels uncertain and complicated and likely to just lead to random quite big things, but maybe that’s ok. 

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